


Review of LEGO The Hobbit

by yourlibrarian



Category: LEGO The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Nonfiction, Reviews, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:15:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25155319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: Having played most of the LEGO video games, this one seems to fit in between the earlier LEGO game style and the later ones which offered multi-layer challenges and the majority of the game in the hub world.
Kudos: 2
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Review of LEGO The Hobbit

I completed the LEGO Hobbit game recently and found it was more of a challenge than either the DC Villains or Incredibles, which are newer productions. For one thing, there's a lot of sequential activity in it, some things only appearing on the game map after others have been completed. And these steps can be several layers deep.

For example, this game seems to sit at a transition point between older games and the improvements in newer ones with an expanded hub world. Hobbit has the usual red bricks seen in LEGO productions, but unlike newer games, they've got useful properties aside from the studs multipliers, which means one would really like to have them sooner rather than later (and before free play runthroughs). What can make this frustrating is that there are various steps needed before one can acquire the bricks, such as:

1) Acquiring an item design, which might have to be found in the hub world or during a free play session;  
2) Getting the item forged (only possible if you've got sufficient quantities of the right loot and have completed enough quests);  
3) Finding the correct red quest where one must deliver the item;  
4) Having enough money to buy the brick once it's unlocked. So it pretty much demands using a walkthrough to keep it all straight.

That's a lot of steps and it's tough to do early in the game with few studs and little of the more expensive loot. The loot itself is unique to this game as I haven't seen LEGO use the concept elsewhere -- one gets not just studs from breaking things but various kinds of food, building supplies, or precious gems. These totals, which are banked in your account, rather than just used on the spot as in previous games, may seem plentiful at first until it turns out you need 10 or more of them for a given challenge or item forging. And there are a lot of "build an item" points in the game world which require different amounts of loot, which means that one has to avoid those until later when loot is plentiful.

Yet at the same time, you need to earn mithril bricks through game play. (This is similar to requiring gold brick totals in other LEGO games). One can only forge an item with a certain number of them. After finishing story mode one will have a modest stock of them available, but each forged item requires anywhere from 5-12 of them. That means accomplishing at least 5-12 challenges or quests in the game world to be able to forge items. To make things even more delayed, one has to change the world from day to night at campsites, because some challenges only appear in one of the two. So there is a LOT of back and forth across the map to find given challenges, go to the forge, go to the loot purchasing device (once one has enough money to even make that an option), change the time of day, go back to the forge, and then find the place to deliver the forged item.

As an aside, boy does the game make obvious what a difference it makes in one's progress if one ~~was born on third base~~ has enough money banked. Then a player can simply buy enough loot of all kinds to keep them in stock for whenever a new challenge or build event demands them.

So essentially one has to first complete the story play, try to get a high stud multiplier red brick, and then start completing key challenges in order to acquire the characters or devices needed to finish the free plays successfully. After that one must go back and forth from free plays to the game world in order to keep acquiring the things needed to finish up the challenges.

I wasn't fond of the story mode itself. I've found that games based on movies tend to have weaker story lines because there tend to be a lot of long cut scenes and sometimes the playable sections are a little forced. For example in this game the second level with all the dwarves arriving at Bilbo's house takes a long time, with at least 6 cut scenes and not a lot of activity -- including one whole section of plate juggling. As if to underline how little is happening on that whole level, most of the free play items end up being acquired in Bilbo's backyard and basement, a space not even available in the story mode. Another level has a whole section centered on getting a horse an apple.

Certainly if one is a fan of the Hobbit or LotR, I'm sure there's extra fun in playing the game. As someone who has now played 90% of all the LEGO games released, I always find it interesting to see how the game designers adapt common features in all the games (bricks, studs, character skills) to the particular canon being used in the game. So in this game one travels across distances via eagle or horse, none of the characters can fly or have super speed (though there is one workaround) and there were no underwater sections. I had a world of trouble at the beginning even telling all the dwarves apart and figuring out which ones had which key skills (arrows, slings, flails, hammers). If not for the walkthrough guide (critical!) I'd never have figured out that Sam (who's not even in the story!) is the sole character with fire lighting ability which is needed in a lot of places. Or that I could acquire my own hand crank (which was a huge time saver in one challenge).

Also a lot of the forged items are not really much of an advantage, and one major annoyance is that switching tools could happen randomly. For example, if I was having Legolas use a bow, then I wanted him to keep using it until I changed it. Instead he might suddenly switch to swords, forcing me to have to go into the menu to reset his tools several times (this is particularly frustrating during a fight or a timed event). But there are two important tools to get as quickly as possible. The main one is the Mithril Bow which will destroy shiny silver objects. The second was unexpected -- the Mithril Horseshoes. The hardest challenge in the game is a timed obstacle course in Rivendell. This took me days to complete since TT had not yet put a reset button in where one could just restart the challenge (instead one had to keep running back to the travel point after every failed attempt). But one major assist in completing it was having extra speed. That's because the timing wasn't a countdown from the start, but rather reset at points during the obstacle course. That meant I could bank seconds in earlier parts with a faster character, which gave me time to make mistakes at the very end when I had to do a series of jumps. 

Since forging items was tied to mithril brick totals, this meant that the game couldn't be completed without every single challenge finished, because there were only enough bricks for every single forged item.

Some other bugs I had involved a character getting stuck in a falling loop or something not showing up when it should. But it wasn't a big issue. I did have to once reboot the game console and twice more restart the game itself. A bigger problem was not being able to see things that matter (for example a dirt pile in a poorly lit section, a ledge that means my character doesn't keep falling, etc.) That's where the walkthrough was also very helpful ("Ohhh, so _that's_ what that thing is.")

Overall, I think that The Hobbit is a much better LEGO game than several of the more recent ones. It's a game that one has to be strategic about playing. Even with a walkthrough I had to make myself a list of what to prioritize acquiring and what order I had to do quests in to make things appear, and how much coin I'd need once I did. So while the story level is meh, overall I'm not able to rush through the game but instead must figure out how to successfully complete it without having to do a lot of repetition.

One thing I was warned of in advance in reviews is that the final bit of the films, Smaug's attack on Lake Town, Bilbo's return home, etc. never happens. Apparently it was designed so you had to download the final section, but I think it was never created. So it ends in a rather odd way. Still, well worth playing. 

I've also had quite a different experience since I started putting the video game on mute. This began because when I'm stuck on something I get tired of listening to the music or dialogue repeat, and it also means I can listen to the radio in the background. But what surprised me is what an effect the game's music can have on my stress level when I'm trying to do something difficult. I find I can concentrate and perform better with no sound. Kind of fascinating to see how easily we're influenced by something subliminal.


End file.
